EVENTS

Fourth Wave: Part Five

Recently, I was reading a little post over on Lousy Canuck in which Jason referred to the Fourth Wave concept. He made the assertion that, in his perspective, Fourth Wave is where we, as feminists, now are. Something about this didn’t sit well with me at all.

I don’t claim the right to define what feminism, or trans-feminism, or fourth-wave, or anything, is “supposed” to mean to anyone else. Even whatever ideas I myself present are no longer my own the second I click the publish button. At that point, those ideas belong to whomever may find them, to interpret in whatever ways they find useful. It’s only in allowing things that kind of breathing room to be interpreted and reinterpreted, collectively or individually, that they have the power to move conversations forward, or create new meaningful conversations. However, I feel like the idea of fourth wave as “where we are now”, and the way that feels not-quite-right to me, itself offers an opening for important conversations.

Fourth wave is, for me and for many of my colleagues, very fundamentally a work-in-progress. Something we’re trying to arrive at. It’s also, almost by definition, not where we, as vague or precise a “we” as you’d like, have just naturally ended up. The whole concept of a “fourth wave” is necessitated precisely because feminism has hit certain very difficult, very stubborn stumbling blocks. It’s necessitated because we’re not moving past certain things simply as part of the natural evolution of feminism thought. It’s necessitated because we need to make a very decisive and intentional split with certain concepts that are holding feminism back. If fourth wave were simply where feminism arrived of its own accord, there would be no real need for any such concept or action in the first place.

It is, to me, a somewhat idealistic vision of a feminism we may be able to create. An intensively, rigorously, self-critically intersectional feminism. A feminism that is for all women. A feminism that speaks to the full range of women’s experiences. A feminism that is capable of speaking to the full range of gender and social gender dynamics (including axes of power, privilege and oppression), which includes gender variance, and more so the variance itself rather than just specific iterations. A feminism that is not prescriptive in how it suggests (or much less demands) the lives of women, or anyone else suffering under the current treatment of gender, should meet its politics. A feminism that prioritizes what it can offer to human beings, their lives and experiences, rather than demanding those lives and experiences fit into its theoretical, ethical or political frameworks. A feminism that’s prioritization of agency and bodily autonomy is absolute and consistent. A feminism that is conversational, built on the shared co-existence of diverse backgrounds and perspectives and experiences, and knows the importance of this, and the limitations of any individual perspective. A feminism where the boundaries between theory and praxis, academia and “real life”, wouldn’t be relevant nor act as barriers. A feminism that offers rather than demands, limits or imposes. A feminism that understands rather than explains. A feminism that listens rather than analyzes. A feminism that is okay with being uncomfortable, and getting its hands dirty, that understands we can’t achieve much if we aren’t willing to look at difficult things and work through the things we’d most prefer to leave alone.

A feminism that gets over its constant prioritization, deliberate or inadvertent, of the needs of very particular classes of women.

Etc.

If we’re really, really lucky, this is something we might be able to make happen, through a lot of work and thought and discussion. And it’s going to be very difficult discussion, where there will be a lot of disagreements and mistakes and stumbling blocks of our own, as we negotiate how to listen to one another and achieve these shared values and goals (though hopefully, we won’t simply cease being conversational once we get past those wobbly baby steps). This is something we can make a reality if we pour ourselves into it and can make those sacrifices, fight those battles, have those disagreements, make those mistakes, be uncomfortable, get our hands dirty.

One thing it absolutely is not, however, is where we are, or where we’re simply going to arrive.

But to be honest, the more I think about it, the more I’m not sure fourth wave should ever be where we are. Maybe it needs to be a work-in-progress. Maybe it should always be a work-in-progress. Or at least understood as a process, or a goal, or a guiding set of principles. Something we work towards rather than be.

I’ve noticed over time that a whole lot of people, from a wide variety of political positions, often think of feminism as the effort to achieve a specific, realizable goal, an attempt to bring about a certain kind of world or political circumstance. I think this has always been a bit of a naive viewpoint, regardless of what goal you’re imagining… maybe something as simple as closing the wage gap and ensuring reproductive rights, or as idealistic as achieving the complete abolition of unequal distributions of power and privilege along lines of gender, or as completely batshit ridiculous as the self-valorizing MRA mythologies in which a totalitarian matriarchy grasps all wealth and power on a global scale and keeps men completely subjugated as breeding stock. My own feminism has never been built on these ideas. I imagine instead that even if we were to achieve some kind of full, utopian gender parity, feminism would still be necessary as a process of “upkeep”, a way to work against the entropic pull towards systems of categorization, marginalization, subjugation and exploitation. A “post-feminist” world can’t ever be achieved, because feminism will always be necessary to compensate for certain aspects of who and what we are.

Maybe my perspective is cynical, but it’s grounded in trying to pay very close attention to what human beings are like. And the sad truth of it is that we don’t categorize, discriminate, marginalize and so on solely because we inherit those systems, but because they’re easy. It’s part of how our brains our wired. Sexism, racism, cissexism, heterosexism, ableism… all of those maladaptive social problems emerge from what were originally adaptive, healthy heuristics.

It’s simply impossible for us, as human beings, to evaluate whether or not to trust someone else on a completely individual basis. It’s dangerous, and can lead to us getting killed. A woman, for example, pulled over on the side of the road, can’t be expected to risk her life on trusting any man who happens to pull over and offer her some help. It’s not quite “fair” to the man, whose intentions are more likely genuine and kind than not, but nonetheless his feelings aren’t worth gambling her life for. That kind of decision is healthy, but those same thought processes, those heuristics we employ so that we don’t risk our lives constantly evaluating every single individual situation by its countless individual variables, create a constant tug towards prejudicial attitudes. It’s safer, and easier, to just not trust anyone who isn’t quite like us, anyone who presents with unfamiliar traits, or traits that have been culturally coded as “other”. The unknown and other is scary, because it’s…well…unknown and other. It’s a risk.

The trouble with it is the same as the trouble with every weird, irrational little element of human cognition and behaviour. They never evolved to try to cope with something as complex and multifaceted as our civilization. Like the majority of our instincts, the ways that our brains our designed to work, we need to work to get past it in order to thrive in our world, and to become something a little bit better than what’s easiest to be. But because these kinds of thinking are a fundamental part of who we are, we can’t just “solve” it, learn something like “prejudice is wrong” and suddenly be all better. Because it’s part of how we think, how we process the world around us, it requires constant upkeep, constant attention, constant renewal.

This is where feminism and skepticism become very, very similar concepts for me. Skepticism, broadly speaking, has never for me been about having a little club where a bunch of smug jerks can get together to smugly congratulate each other for not believing in the Loch Ness Monster, but instead was something I valued and believed in as a process, with the intention of helping us cope with and work around all the countless little irrational quirks in how human brains work in order to have a little more agency over our perceptions, our beliefs and, consequently, our choices. Sexism and cissexism and heterosexism… those things are all very, very heavily tied up in our culture and how we’ve structured our society, yes. They’re political in nature. But they’re also human in nature, very much a product of how our quirky, irrational brains deal with the quirky, complex phenomena of gender, sex and sexuality. We could collapse and rebuild our entire civilization a hundred times over and us weird, silly human beings would still end up reacting in problematic ways to the inevitability of gender and the inescapable reality of being a sexual species. Feminism, even if we no longer called it that; a process of trying to see past our immediate perceptions, and act beyond what is the most easy, intuitive or satisfying way to approach gender, and give ourselves the choice to be something better; would still be not only valuable, but necessary.

Skepticism and social justice work like feminism have never felt in any meaningful way distinguishable for me. It was always about the exact same thing, which was not to let our immediate perceptions dominate us. Convincing self-identified skeptics to consider the irrational biases that govern things like sexism a meaningful issue to address has been something I’ve lost almost all faith in. But trying to promote the value of careful, critical examination of our perceptions, beliefs and ways of thinking within feminism is something that doesn’t feel nearly as lost. At least not yet. One of the best ways to accomplish that, and to help steer feminism away from mistakenly building itself around flawed, biased and limited goals and theories that benefit only those who have most control over the discourse, is to work on understanding it as a process. A way of coping with the situation we’re in. A situation we’re in together.

I’ve heard it often said that the main flaw of Third Wave was the lack of a cohesive goal. First Wave had suffrage, while Second Wave had equal pay, the pill and reproductive rights. Maybe the gradually expanding plurality of goals has always been a good thing, one of the primary indications that feminism is evolving into something that may someday become simply a shared common set of values, principles and ways of approaching things. Whenever a movement coalesces around a singular goal, those for whom that goal is not important or applicable are thrown under the bus. Consider, for instance, who has been neglected (or exploited) in the increased primacy of marriage equality and DADT in the movement for “LGBT” rights. Maybe what we need is less cohesion. More range, plurality and adaptability, with which to cope with and be able to address the near infinitely broad range of experiences individuals may have in relation to gender and the social systems surrounding it.

I wouldn’t want a fourth wave to become simply how we regard ourselves, nor would I want it to simply be a slightly adapted set of priorities and goals. I’d want it to be an idea of what feminism could be that we continually work towards, so as to pull against those terribly inevitable human failings that would ultimately lead us to shutting each other out, building heirarchies, prioritizing our own needs, rigidly adhering to our theories, demanding that everything fit and rejecting whatever can’t. The moment it would become something we think we are rather than something we consistently, with constant attention and renewal, struggle against what we are towards, is the moment we begin sliding backwards. What we are is never nearly as beautiful as what we might be.

I’d want a fourth wave to be the values that define a process. I’d want it to be the hard choice we have to make, over and over again, every day, to not just do what feels easiest, see what’s most apparent, or hear what we want to hear. The hard choice to understand one another, and understand this whole “gender” mess, that, for better or worse, we share.

Comments

I think that 4th wave is more of an evolution and clarification of 3rd wave rather than a wave in and of itself, but that’s just nitpicking.

I think what it comes down to is that feminism is just one part of a much larger struggle, or at least ideally in my mind it should be, one against overt hierarchy in all forms. Feminism is just possibly the largest part of that struggle (as it affects the most people).

This is why I don’t see as strong of a link between atheism (which looks to break down religious hierarchy) and skepticism as much as I see a link between atheism and feminism, mainly because I feel that skepticism often serves to maintain said hierarchy.

Now, I’m not an anarchist. I don’t think we can (or should) eliminate hierarchy entirely. But I do think we can definitely work towards making it not this big overwhelming presence that overshadows everything else like it currently does. Keep it to a roar, as my father always said.

I should point out that why this is a major conflict (and this may be controversial) is that I do not think that all feminists are entirely down, or at least aware of the concept of minimizing overt hierarchy. That’s the transition, from moving to Third Wave to Fourth Wave, that I think we’re talking about. The Trans community I think definitely gets the brunt of it right now.

(As an aside, I will say that this post and the last post in reality are a lot more linked together than most people think)

Really? See, I tend to think of atheism as being the movement that isn’t necessarily all that connected to feminism and other social justice things, but skepticism IS. I see those heirarchies as all being sustained by irrational biases, and the precise nature of the excuses and justifactions, be they religious or pseudo-scientific in nature, is irrelevant. The Atheist Movement could “win”, and successfully discredit religion on a global scale, and the world could STILL be just as shitty, oppressive, irrational and heirarchial as it always was. But if the values of skepticism, at least as I believe in it, as that process of constant attention and questioning, were to be universally embraced, a far more equitable, tolerant society would emerge, as we would no longer just run with those initial preconceptions of one another, and no longer embrace whatever theories or worldviews happen to provide us the most comfy, privilege-denying, system-justifying answers.

I personally see skepticism as leaning towards doubt. This, combined with conformation bias I think more often than not leads to the maintenance of the status quo, I.E. it’s inherently conservative. (Little c conservative)

What you’re talking about, I more link to rationalism (and in fact, I would describe myself as a rationalist) and that “ism’s” such as sexism and racism or whatever are generally irrational at their very core and that’s a big reason why they’re bad. Rationalism is the search for the best answers and isms get in the way of that.

I think a lot of the strife we see these days is that there’s a lot of conflict between these two concepts.

I guess skeptic, in theory might be a good word to describe this, but I find far too often in practice that simply isn’t the case. As someone who kind of fell away from atheism and atheist communities for a few years, I might just be jaded by pre-web communications (I.E. Newsgroups) where I don’t think I ever really jived with self-described skeptics.

Speaking of a broad range of experiences: I’ve been thinking recently that in this movement-building we’re not hearing enough from older feminists, who are no longer speaking or who wrote pre-Internet. Certainly, we’re building on new histories and life experiences that make large chunks of past work irrelevant. Or relevant for understanding the origins of problems, but not their solutions. But when it comes to “ways of approaching things”, I think those of us who get our education from new perspectives are really missing out on great thinkers like Audre Lorde (just look at these quotes and miss the less abstract things she’s said).

Lorde does more than discuss problems of racism, sexism and homophobia, and what happens at their intersections. She has an amazing undercurrent of love in her work, and a focus on getting rid of self-oppression, like Natalie does, a truly constructive mentality. Not to say that we can’t add to that and build on it or disagree, or that nobody has, but I feel that voices like hers are missing from fourth-wave conversations and should not be. They could make some negotiations much less painful.

That said, the reason I read one essay of hers is that a group I just joined passed it around as a starting point for our in-person conversations. So maybe I have nothing to complain about, and maybe this seems off-topic. But I am curious if anyone disagrees or has thoughts, or who else I’ve been missing.

In 20 years, people might say that this was the beginning of the 4th wave. Actually, probably a couple years ago (with social networking explosion allowing more access to many different voices, allowing more people to actually speak).

But I agree that saying we’re there now is wrong. We’re… working toward a better tomorrow. Let historians dictate which wave, when and where it started.

(But that’s me… I also don’t remember the shifts between the other waves)

We need to smash the kyriarchy. My identity as a gay woman is accepted and respected by (most) feminists, but my low SES, my class, my disabilities, mental illness, lack of neurotypicality? Not at all respected, ignored, snubbed, or even mocked outright.

Until feminism is truly intersectional, until class/income/profession/social status/sexuality/race/culture/disability/mental illness/non-NT status/gender ID/parental status/body size etc*. are rendered immaterial as to a woman’s worth and credibility, yet acknowledged as crucial to her point of view and unique contribution, then we’re stuck.

My feminism will be intersectional, or it will be bullshit.

*I’ve personally been ridiculed and abused by a very big-name feminist blogger because of my disabilities, class, SES, and size. I’ve seen fast food workers mocked and told “Ssh, grownups are talking”. Women who do not want kids are called “unnatural” or “freaks”, women with more than two are “breeders”. And obviously you know only too well about the disgusting problems WRT trans women and non-binary women.

I need to work personally toward a place where experience, enthusiasm, and a desire to affect positive change are the most important qualities in a feminist, and where everything else is merely an interesting characteristic rather than an impediment.

“Until feminism is truly intersectional, until class/income/profession/social status/sexuality/race/culture/disability/mental illness/non-NT status/gender ID/parental status/body size etc*. are rendered immaterial as to a woman’s worth and credibility, yet acknowledged as crucial to her point of view and unique contribution, then we’re stuck.”

Agreed. I think that’s why I personally believe we need to move past the idea of feminism. I understand that feminism is something that is evolving, and has to evolve, I think any reasonable person could see that. But the point I’d like to drive home is at some place on the timeline what was once a fish becomes a lizard.

Don’t get caught up on the fish and lizards though, those are just the best animals I could think of for this analogy.

TLDR

Either feminism evolves into something new, or it dies. How many more waves do we need before one of those is apparent?

Thank you so much for this. I was trying to explain to my mother (a second wave feminist) why I only really *got* feminism/anti-racism/social justice once I approached it with a skeptical framework, and as usual, you’ve articulated everything so much better than I could. I think conceptualizing it as a constant struggle is perfect. And the reminder of the necessity of getting one’s hands dirty is super important too- I can so easily get stuck in the thinking part of the struggle, and sometimes I use the fact that there is no “perfect” movement or organization as an excuse for passivity. But we have to work with what we have to become what we want to be.

Skepticism, broadly speaking, has never for me been about having a little club where a bunch of smug jerks can get together to smugly congratulate each other for not believing in the Loch Ness Monster, but instead was something I valued and believed in as a process, with the intention of helping us cope with and work around all the countless little irrational quirks in how human brains work in order to have a little more agency over our perceptions, our beliefs and, consequently, our choices.

… is how I’ve always thought of Skepticism. As a way of understanding the world without bias or prejudice. I don’t always live up to that goal but it is an ideal that I strive for.

This…

Convincing self-identified skeptics to consider the irrational biases that govern things like sexism a meaningful issue to address has been something I’ve lost almost all faith in.

…saddens me a bit because I have identified as a Skeptic for a while. Skepticism was my gateway to atheism, humanism, social justice…etc. I realize though that big S Skepticism and little s skepticism aren’t always the same thing. So now I try to avoid labels as much as possible.

I guess what I really want to say is that I wish that the people that call themselves Skeptics wouldn’t stop analyzing the world through a skeptical lens once they get past the easy stuff.(ghosts, nessie, bigfoot, UFOs…etc.) Social beliefs are as deserving of skeptical inquiry as supernatural beliefs.

I also want to say that I love your blog. I love the way you write. It feels like I’m reading the words from inside your head. That is to say that you describe things and explain things in the same way that I think about things and so reading your words is almost comforting. Another thing is that you make me think. I gave encountered the concept of privilege before but never felt it quite like I do when you describe it. (straight, white, cis gendered, middle class, suburban, neurotypical, male. At your service.) I had to learn new words, phrases, and acronyms just to understand some of the things you write about because I had never realized that trans* issues were so distinct from other LGB issues. I’ve learned and grown reading your blog and I think that I am a better person for it. I have always thought of myself as an ally, but now I know to ask how I can help instead of just assuming that the way that I want to help is the best way, even though I have no first hand experience.

Sorry. This got kinda long and rambling. I’m posting this from my phone and it is very difficult to edit from here. But as a final note, Thanks again for putting yourself out here. It is making a difference.J